Electoral Commission Quotes

In each of these places, they took strikingly similar steps to consolidate their power: they ratcheted up tensions with perceived enemies at home and abroad; packed courts and electoral commissions with their cronies; and took control of the media.

Moi, moreover, made full use of his control of government machinery to obtain funds, harass the opposition and manipulate the results. The delimitation of constituencies was skewed heavily to favour Kanu strongholds in the North Eastern, Rift Valley and Coast provinces. The number of voters needed to return a single seat in opposition strongholds in some cases was four times higher than in Kanu strongholds. Whereas the North Eastern province, with 1.79 per cent of the electorate, had ten seats, Nairobi province with 8.53 per cent had only eight seats; whereas Coast province with 8.37 per cent of the electorate had twenty seats, Central province with 15.51 per cent had only twenty-five seats. The average size of a secure Kanu constituency was only 28,350 voters, while seats in opposition areas were on average 84 per cent larger with 52,169 voters. The registration process was also manipulated. The government cut short the period allowed for voter registration and delayed the issuing of identity cards needed by young potential voters, effectively disenfranchising at least 1 million people. Opposition areas were under-registered. The highest figures for registration were in the Rift Valley. The independence of the Electoral Commission was also suspect. The man Moi appointed to head it was a former judge who had been declared bankrupt two years previously and removed from the bench for improper conduct.

In many ways, President Trump followed the electoral authoritarian script during his first year. He made efforts to capture the referees, sideline the key players who might halt him, and tilt the playing field. But the president has talked more than he has acted, and his most notorious threats have not been realized. Troubling antidemocratic initiatives, including packing the FBI with loyalists and blocking the Mueller investigation, were derailed by Republican opposition and his own bumbling. One important initiative, the Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, is just getting off the ground, so its impact is harder to evaluate. Overall, then, President Trump repeatedly scraped up against the guardrails, like a reckless driver, but he did not break through them. Despite clear causes for concern, little actual backsliding occurred in 2017. We did not cross the line into authoritarianism.

Here we introduce the nation's first great communications monopolist, whose reign provides history's first lesson in the power and peril of concentrated control over the flow of information. Western Union's man was one Rutherford B. Hates, an obscure Ohio politician described by a contemporary journalist as "a third rate nonentity." But the firm and its partner newswire, the Associated Press, wanted Hayes in office, for several reasons. Hayes was a close friend of William Henry Smith, a former politician who was now the key political operator at the Associated Press. More generally, since the Civil War, the Republican Party and the telegraph industry had enjoyed a special relationship, in part because much of what were eventually Western Union's lines were built by the Union Army. So making Hayes president was the goal, but how was the telegram in Reid's hand key to achieving it? The media and communications industries are regularly accused of trying to influence politics, but what went on in the 1870s was of a wholly different order from anything we could imagine today. At the time, Western Union was the exclusive owner of the nationwide telegraph network, and the sizable Associated Press was the unique source for "instant" national or European news. (It's later competitor, the United Press, which would be founded on the U.S. Post Office's new telegraph lines, did not yet exist.) The Associated Press took advantage of its economies of scale to produce millions of lines of copy a year and, apart from local news, its product was the mainstay of many American newspapers. With the common law notion of "common carriage" deemed inapplicable, and the latter day concept of "net neutrality" not yet imagined, Western Union carried Associated Press reports exclusively. Working closely with the Republican Party and avowedly Republican papers like The New York Times (the ideal of an unbiased press would not be established for some time, and the minting of the Time's liberal bona fides would take longer still), they did what they could to throw the election to Hayes. It was easy: the AP ran story after story about what an honest man Hayes was, what a good governor he had been, or just whatever he happened to be doing that day. It omitted any scandals related to Hayes, and it declined to run positive stories about his rivals (James Blaine in the primary, Samuel Tilden in the general). But beyond routine favoritism, late that Election Day Western Union offered the Hayes campaign a secret weapon that would come to light only much later. Hayes, far from being the front-runner, had gained the Republican nomination only on the seventh ballot. But as the polls closed his persistence appeared a waste of time, for Tilden, the Democrat, held a clear advantage in the popular vote (by a margin of over 250,000) and seemed headed for victory according to most early returns; by some accounts Hayes privately conceded defeat. But late that night, Reid, the New York Times editor, alerted the Republican Party that the Democrats, despite extensive intimidation of Republican supporters, remained unsure of their victory in the South. The GOP sent some telegrams of its own to the Republican governors in the South with special instructions for manipulating state electoral commissions. As a result the Hayes campaign abruptly claimed victory, resulting in an electoral dispute that would make Bush v. Gore seem a garden party. After a few brutal months, the Democrats relented, allowing Hayes the presidency — in exchange, most historians believe, for the removal of federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction. The full history of the 1876 election is complex, and the power of th

Mandal vs Mandir The V.P. Singh government was the biggest casualty of this confrontation. Within the BJP and its mentor, the RSS, the debate on whether or not to oppose V.P. Singh and OBC reservations reached a high pitch. Inder Malhotra | 981 words It was a blunder on V.P. Singh’s part to announce his acceptance of the Mandal Commission’s report recommending 27 per cent reservations in government jobs for what are called Other Backward Classes but are, in fact, specified castes — economically well-off, politically powerful but socially and educationally backward — in such hot haste. He knew that the issue was highly controversial, deeply emotive and potentially explosive, which it proved to be instantly. But his top priority was to outsmart his former deputy and present adversary, Devi Lal. He even annoyed those whose support “from outside” was sustaining him in power. BJP leaders were peeved that they were informed of what was afoot practically at the last minute in a terse telephone call. What annoyed them even more was that the prime minister’s decision would divide Hindu society. The BJP’s ranks demanded that the plug be pulled on V.P. Singh but the top leadership advised restraint, because it was also important to keep the Congress out of power. The party leadership was aware of the electoral clout of the OBCs, who added up to 52 per cent of the population. As for Rajiv Gandhi, he was totally and vehemently opposed to the Mandal Commission and its report. He eloquently condemned V.P. Singh’s decision when it was eventually discussed in Parliament. This can be better understood in the perspective of the Mandal Commission’s history. Having acquired wealth during the Green Revolution and political power through elections, the OBCs realised that they had little share in the country’s administrative apparatus, especially in the higher rungs of the bureaucracy. So they started clamouring for reservations in government jobs. Throughout the Congress rule until 1977, this demand fell on deaf ears. It was the Janata government, headed by Morarji Desai, that appointed the Mandal Commission in 1978. Ironically, by the time the commission submitted its report, the Janata was history and Indira Gandhi was back in power. She quietly consigned the document to the deep freeze. In Rajiv’s time, one of his cabinet ministers, Shiv Shanker, once asked about the Mandal report.

Once in office, Orbán systematically consolidated his rule. He appointed loyal followers to lead state-run television stations, to head the electoral commission, and to dominate the country’s constitutional court. He changed the electoral system to benefit himself, pushed out foreign corporations to channel money to his cronies, instituted highly restrictive rules on NGOs, and attempted to shutter Central European University.15

Electoral Commission must insist that all social media spending be recorded and shared transparently – and be prepared to investigate any misuse of personal data or spending irregularities.

than one hundred black Louisianans exercising political liberty. The duty of protecting citizens’ equal rights, the Court said, “rests alone with the States.” Such judicial conservatism and embrace of states’ rights doctrine, practiced by the justices, all of whom had been appointed by Republican presidents Lincoln and Grant, left a resounding imprint on what remained of Reconstruction.55 In the disputed election of 1876, Tilden in all likelihood won the popular vote by more than two hundred thousand votes and 3 percent, but did not become president. When election returns poured in, it appeared that Hayes had failed, but the three “unredeemed” Southern states of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina were fiercely and violently contested. With 185 electoral votes needed for victory, without the three disputed states Tilden had 184 and Hayes 166. Both sides claimed they had won and accused their opponents of fraud in the disputed states, although most of the bloodshed and intimidation committed in those states had been against black Republican voters. To resolve this unprecedented situation, Congress established a fifteen-member electoral commission, balanced between Democrats and Republicans. Because Republicans held a majority in the overall Congress, they prevailed 8–7 on repeated attempts to “count” the confused returns. As the midwinter crisis dragged on in Washington, it appeared Hayes would become president. Democrats controlled the House and launched a filibuster to block action on the count.56

Let alone the border states, there was a problem in the capital itself. Many complaints were received after the draft rolls were published on 25 January 1993 in Delhi. The complaints said that the names of foreign nationals were included and genuine Indian citizens were excluded. It was decided by the commission that action would be taken against the Delhi administration for ‘lapses’ in its procedures for including the names of foreign nationals, particularly Bangladeshis, in the revised electoral rolls. The final lists were to be out by 25 March in 13 sectors where a large population of illegal immigrants was supposed to be living. The result was that in the final roll, only 17,000 could be declared as voters from one area where there were 128,000 in the draft rolls. These figures were alarming. The publication of final rolls was held up for some time. In fact, according to police sources, there were possibly around 400,000 illegal immigrants in Delhi at that time. There were speculations in the press suggesting that this was just the tip of the iceberg. It took up to November for elections to be held.

They do not believe the Independent Electoral Commission is truly independent, citing numerous examples of deficiencies: staff bias and incompetence, lack of planning and communication, lack of security for observers and lack of action on alleged electoral breaches, regional staff who show people who to vote for, and washable ink for forefingers so people can vote multiple times.

The public don’t know the IEC and some ministers don’t even know why we are here either. They say “we have had the election”. It is difficult. ‘You come from a democratic, ordered community. Here, everything is displaced and disordered. Since being here I have done my best to justify the IEC to people. When the chairman of the Indian Electoral Commission was here the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of External Affairs had forgotten the issue, but Karzai cancelled everything to make a meeting. ‘At this time, the IEC has not reached a place where it can conduct an election.

It turns out cheating is a pretty good strategy to win, as there are very few consequences. The Electoral Commission later conceded that even if the vote was won with the benefit of illegal data or illegal financing, the result still stands.

Tume ya uchaguzi ikiidhinisha matokeo halafu watu wakalumbana hayo ni matatizo yenu. Nchi imeshatoa maamuzi yake.

That said, it so happens that much of this president’s collusion may in fact be criminal. The particular forms of collusion in which Trump, members of his family who are also political advisers, and his presidential campaign engaged may include aiding and abetting or conspiracy connected to electoral fraud, computer crimes, bribery, and money laundering, as well as acts of witness tampering, making false statements, obstruction of justice, and much more. Conspiracy occurs when two or more persons have a “meeting of the minds” and set as their ambition the commission of a criminal act; the federal conspiracy statute is violated when the parties take an “act in furtherance” of the commission of the intended crime. But the crime does not have to be committed

That said, it so happens that much of this president’s collusion may in fact be criminal. The particular forms of collusion in which Trump, members of his family who are also political advisers, and his presidential campaign engaged may include aiding and abetting or conspiracy connected to electoral fraud, computer crimes, bribery, and money laundering, as well as acts of witness tampering, making false statements, obstruction of justice, and much more. Conspiracy occurs when two or more persons have a “meeting of the minds” and set as their ambition the commission of a criminal act; the federal conspiracy statute is violated when the parties take an “act in furtherance” of the commission of the intended crime. But the crime does not have to be committed for a violation of the conspiracy statute to be found.

Figures from the Electoral Commission reveal that the Conservatives spent £2.1 million on Facebook advertising alone during the 2017 election campaign.